


A Spirit Chasing You

by andnowforyaya



Series: The Long Way Home [2]
Category: Journey into Mystery, Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Young Avengers
Genre: Gen, Kid Loki, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Self-Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:18:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andnowforyaya/pseuds/andnowforyaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After saving the nine realms from burning under Surtur’s flame, Loki returns to the Tower (mostly) and tries to find his place there again. Then Daimon Hellstrom shows up and brings with him, among other things, demonic possession and very bad choices. Featuring some Young Avengers (Wiccan and Speed, mostly). Universe is a mix of Journey Into Mystery and MCU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is technically part of [The Long Way Home](http://archiveofourown.org/series/26566) universe, but it takes place waaaaay later so it's not chronological. Also it was written mostly because of _Everything Burns_ feelings and anxiety about Young Avengers! So, sorry.

01.

Years later, Loki is blacklisted from the entire state of Oklahoma. He supposes it doesn’t really matter, since he spends most of his time in France, and the remainder of his time in New York. The transportation trick that he picked up from Shatterstar makes the commute between his habitats as simple as drawing an X. Literally.

Oklahoma is a small loss.

There are some things that he misses, though. Billy takes him to try eggcreams in Brooklyn but they really can’t compare to the mint milkshakes that he shared with Leah, and Paris may be the City of Lights, but the stars always seemed closer in Broxton. Once Billy’s twin brother Tommy zipped over with Kate and lined his eyes with black and they all sneaked into a club and had drinks but Kate was the only one who showed it because Tommy’s metabolism didn’t let him get drunk and Loki was a frost giant, so.

He supposes he never would have had those experiences in Oklahoma.

Still. Something is missing.

The Avengers are not as he knew them. Dr. Banner lives in Brazil, now, and only ever comes in to consult; Fury says he’s earned it, though he has the right to call him in whenever he wants. Captain Rogers and Mr. Stark seem always to be on the verge of coming to blows whenever Loki sees them together, so he chooses not to see them together. Something about registration and public personas. Loki cannot even feign interest. At least Tony still meets him for ice cream, even when it’s winter out, and they talk about robotics and how things are going with Professor X.

Which - that’s another thing. Loki already has his GED, has had it since he was fifteen, and now the Professor is sponsoring him through a Bachelor’s. It’s unorthodox, he’s been told, to study just under one professor, but no one else can quite keep up. Even Tony’s knowledge is limited to the sciences, and for some reason Loki decided to study Sociology (Tony was very disappointed, but he got over it).

He and the Professor meet on Thursdays. He and Tony meet on Sundays. On the other days, he’s at the Tower waiting for Billy to get back from classes or stopping America from burning the entire place down when she tries to make omelets on their floor or listening for the alarm, or he’s in Paris trying to narrow down the best place to munch on a croissant.

Today he is in New York, and there is a demon on the loose, and it jumps from human hosts like a virus.

Loki sighs. There isn’t an alarm for this sort of thing - just a niggling feeling in his gut and sometimes the chimes in Billy’s room going crazy.

Speaking of - this is more Billy’s area than his, though he supposes he has enough experience with demons to tackle this one on his own, but Billy’s in class, and America hasn’t been around almost all week. He brings with him a can of Morton’s salt, just in case, and then he draws an X into the air, a flash of light signaling the completion of the rip in space. His nimble fingers find those rips along the X, and he pulls space apart like drawing the curtains to let in the sun. The human, when he arrives, is already trapped within a pentagram and clawing at the edges.

At the pentagram’s edge stands another, and he turns when Loki stumbles out of the X, and Loki gasps.

“I cannot hold it!” Daimon Hellstrom bellows over the howling of the demon and human host, the strain of keeping the monster at bay in his voice. He looks the same, all fire and leather, and now is not the time for heartfelt reunions, Loki reminds himself.

The alleyway smells. A dumpster spills its refuse onto the sidewalk, and the tall bricked walls of New York buildings line the area.

Quickly, Loki draws the dagger he keeps with him from his waist and slices shallowly into his palm a rune, ignoring the accustomed pain. It will heal. He presses his bleeding palm to the edge of the pentagram and the entire cage glows bright red before dulling again. The human inside vomits and collapses, and out of his mouth crawls a black, spindly creature, dripping with ichor and suddenly huge. Loki nearly backs away in disgust. As his hand is quite necessary to the modified pentagram, he merely wrinkles his nose.

“What are you called?” he asks the demon pleasantly, keeping his face a gentle mask even as the smell of thing, pungent and rotting, roils over him. It crackles as it moves, like its bones are breaking and resetting themselves with each shudder.

The demon hisses at him, but answers, for it must. “I am Legion, for We are many.”

“Sounds ominous,” Loki says, hand tingling.

“Loki!” Daimon calls, annoyance just coloring his words. “Get on with it.”

“Yes, yes,” Loki returns, and stabs the demon with his dagger in his other hand, right between its eyes. It screams - an eerie, echoing cry - and crumbles into dust. The human remains out cold on the cracked pavement. “Still hunting demons, then?” he addresses to Daimon, standing and turning to face the exorcist. He wipes the blade of his dagger on the bottom edge of his green tunic.

“Still a snot-faced little brat?” Daimon returns gruffly, panting a little.

Loki slides the dagger back into its sheath and crosses his arms. The other pauses, considering him. He knows his face has grown sharper, and that his eyes have deepened in green. He looks leaner, hungrier. “I guess not,” Daimon amends.

Loki shrugs an apathetic shoulder and examines him, taking note of the scar Daimon’s acquired on his chest above his sternum. He’s trimmed his hair, too. The red glimmers like fire when he turns his head. At the continued silence, the Son of Satan mumbles, “So how have you been?”

Loki quirks an eyebrow. “We last saw each other when the Nine Realms were burning, yes? I have been…adjusting.” It’s the best way to put it. Stark convinced Thor to convince Loki to go to therapy, and even his therapist could think of no more an eloquent turn of phrase (He sees the therapist on Wednesdays). “Would you like to come see the Tower?” he asks next, because Daimon is here, and Daimon knew him, from before, and he knew Leah, and he knew Broxton.

Something is missing. This is not it, but it’s close enough.

Daimon says, “Sure, kid,” and takes Loki’s bleeding hand when he holds it out for him, and then they step through the rip in space into the Tower.

//

Daimon doesn’t stick around, not really. He has other demons to exorcise, in places far more interesting than New York, but he visits, now that he knows the places where Loki lingers. Mostly, they vanquish demons together.

“It’s very entertaining,” Loki tells Billy one rainy afternoon. The rain is coming down in sheets so thick that even evil seems to have taken the day off, and all of New York hums under a haze of gray. “He’s very good at what he does.”

“Mmhm,” Billy says, typing away at his laptop. Every once in a while he stops to highlight something in the massive textbook that is next to him on the desk before going back to his laptop screen and squinting at it. Loki lounges on Billy’s bed; even though the bed is Billy’s, the sheets smell like Teddy, like his spicy body wash and sometimes his minty aftershave. Teddy visits a lot, though Loki rarely sees him.

“The other day I took him to Japan to this old house where a lady had been possessed for years.”

“Japan?” Billy asks, still typing at his computer.

“Yes, and we made quick work of the monster. The lady is all right. Recovering. She was so pleased when we were through and she had her life back again. It’s so mindless, though, this exorcism thing. Hardly any real thought required.”

“Hm.”

“We stopped for sushi - real sushi - in Ginza. You should take Teddy there some time, you know. I think you would like it.”

“Hm? Well, you know. Raw fish.”

“And then I took us to the Great Wall. And then to my favorite cafe in Paris. And then to Stark’s Malibu Mansion in California. And then I passed out because I was so tired from the effort of ripping apart space multiple times and we nearly ended up in the middle of Lake Ontario.”

“Hm. Wait - what? You passed out?”

“You’re busy,” Loki says, smiling. “We can find another time to discuss our adventures.” He brings himself up on the bed and swings his legs in front of him to the floor, standing.

“I’m not - Well, I’ve just got this paper due,” Billy tries, looking apologetic and ruffled, his short black hair sticking up from having his fingers run through the strands so many times. “I’m sorry. We’ll catch up later, okay?”

“Later,” Loki promises, and walks out of Billy’s room.

However, later it is Wednesday and he’s sitting in Dr. Mason’s office, and the rain from before has stopped but the sky is still overcast.

Gray-haired Dr. Mason doesn’t sit behind a desk. He sits at a round table with Loki. Loki quickly worked out that this was so he would feel that he and the doctor were on equal footing, but there are times when he still feels like a child, like his legs are dangling because he can’t quite reach the ground, especially when Dr. Mason sits with his hands folded on the table like that.

His office is decorated sparsely, and both the space and his voice are dry like falling leaves. Dr. Mason says, “What do you think of, when you are destroying these demons?”

They spent the first part of the session talking about Loki’s latest demon-hunting exploits, about Professor X and Tony and how the texts are too easy for Loki and so he is bored, bored, bored.

“Nothing. I think of destroying the demons. That is all.”

“You have a single thought on your mind.”

“Yes.”

“How is that for you?” Dr. Mason asks, with a slight tilt to his head that means that Loki is supposed to come to some sort of revelation right about now. He’s figured it out about a month into their “therapeutic” relationship. Loki thinks about the answer his therapist might like to hear.

“It’s calm,” Loki says. “Purposeful. I know what it is that I am supposed to do.”

The more he speaks the more truth there is to the words. Sometimes Dr. Mason gives him something with which to occupy his hands during their conversation, and Loki wishes he could have that distraction at this moment. “I have a direction.”

“You seem antsy,” Dr. Mason notes, and Loki realizes that he has been drumming his fingers onto the tabletop. He stops and twists the ring around his finger instead, its fat green stone gleaming in the light, and silence engulfs them. His mind starts to drift, to Billy, to Daimon, to the next demon, to Leah, when the doctor pulls him back in his office. “When you are not vanquishing demons,” he begins slowly, allowing his client time to mull over the words, “what directions do you have? What purposes?”

Loki thinks of a magpie, of fire and the World Tree, of lightning burning so bright that the sun dims in comparison. He presses his lips together and cannot answer.

Eventually, Dr. Mason takes mercy on him and they talk about Thor, instead. It’s been a while since his brother’s visited.

//

In the aftermath of Surtur’s all-consuming fire, when the World Tree was safe again and shedding its burnt skin, Loki slept. He slept for a long time, and his sleep was interrupted only by Thor’s visits to the hospital where they kept him, since Asgardia had fallen over Oklahoma. Loki thinks that he was somewhere in Kansas; he’s never asked.

Slowly, he awoke.

The nurses were kind to him, if hesitant. He had his own room, with a window that faced the sun as it was setting, and a television and fresh flowers. A man named Dr. Strange often came by to look at his charts, cluck his tongue and shake his head, and leave again without saying a word. Tony played chess with him on the Starkpad when he could not be there in person, and when he could he would bring with him a smattering of gears and batteries and screws to see what sort of mischief they could create that day.

Clint put up a dart board in his room, and Natasha sneaked in some throwing knives whose blades glistened like onyx. The nurses found the knives one day, though, and confiscated them. After that, a lot of people wanted to see him.

The sun kept setting in his window, and time passed. He thinks he slept a lot, still. One night there was a rumbling in the distance, and he fluttered his eyes open to find that the rumbling had been Thor humming an old Asgardian lullaby under his breath, his fingers gently brushing back his younger brother’s raven hair, Thor’s other hand curled around one of Loki’s. The stars were out. Loki wasn’t sure what day it was.

“Did I wake you?” Thor rumbled.

Loki shook his head. Sighed. He picked up the tune where his brother left off, though at least an octave higher.

He was just nearing the final chorus when Thor said, “I am sorry, brother, for what has happened. For the part that I played in the end. For believing you to have betrayed us.” He took a great breath, steeling himself for the last of it: “For not believing in you. I regret it for the suffering I have caused to you, my little brother.”

Thor’s words crawled over him like tiny spiders, and he shook them off. His brother asked him, “Are you cold?” but Loki was shaking his head, and he closed his eyes and saw lightning, and the crackle of it stung, and then he was crying, tears springing like he was drawing from a well, and he drew and he drew and he drew, limbs dead and he was exhausted but still they came. Something was broken inside of him. For a horrifying moment, he thought they would never stop, that he would be wrung out dry as a husk and lost.

Thor said nothing, but in the morning he was still by Loki’s side, hand curled around Loki’s and humming that lullaby.

The burns healed quickly. The hospital agreed to discharge him if he continued receiving outpatient services from something called a ‘therapist’ wherever he was staying. Mr. Stark arranged for Dr. Mason to be that special someone, and then he was back at Avengers Tower, and there was another boy living on Thor’s floor named Billy Kaplan who was a witch and a girl named America Chavez who had a room but rarely stayed in it.

And through it all, Loki spoke not once.

//


	2. Chapter 2

02.

On Thursday, Daimon comes to him. “I’ve been tracking demonic activity,” he says in lieu of an introduction, and brushes coal dust off of his leather jacket. Loki frowns at the black speckles that float to the light carpet of his room at the Tower. He had been reading on his bed when Daimon materialized in front of him, and now he dog-ears the page he’s on and sets the book aside, crossing one ankle over the other in his jeans. The book is about a Hmong child living in California whose severe epilepsy is seen as her being possessed by evil spirits by her family. He read the blurb on Amazon. It’s supposed to be a tragedy.

“The suspense is killing me,” Loki tells his visitor drily and folds his hands over his stomach. “Wait. Let me guess. Demonic activity is on the rise and you want my help to curb the evil threatening our world.” He smirks. “Well, some of the evil.”

“I need to talk to an Avenger.”

“Then why have you decided to appear in front of _me_? And you’ve left unnecessary burn marks on my carpet, as a consequence.” Loki frowns at the ring of charcoal black left by Daimon on his floor.

“Demons are growing in strength and you are worried about your carpet?” Daimon admonishes, gripping the staff of his trident tightly. A little flame shoots out of one of the tips but quickly extinguishes.

“I like to keep up appearances,” he says with a shrug. “The Avengers are a few floors up. Mr. Barton is around. You can speak with him.”

“I shall. Don’t go too far, kid. I have a feeling you’ll be useful in this, anyway.”

“You can use —” Loki starts, only to be cut off by the sharp puff of smoke and flame as Daimon magics himself away to another level of the Tower. “—the elevators.” He frowns at the other ring of black left by Daimon’s exit.

Perhaps he should clean it. Hm.

Instead of that, he lays back into the pillows, chewing on the drawstring of his striped hoodie. _Stay occupied_ , Dr. Mason had told him. _It seems like when you are left with nothing to do, you become lost._

Lost, Loki had thought. Lost from what?

And then he had thought, the opposite of lost is found, but did it really make a difference if he had no final destination? He had a feeling Dr. Mason had not intended for the meaning to be construed in that way. He only meant that Loki at times could be so encumbered by his thoughts that he became all but dead to the rest of the world. Probably. Perhaps Loki should have chosen to study Philosophy instead of Sociology.

He chews on the drawstring some more, plays with his ring. Billy hasn’t even declared a major yet. It hardly seems fair that Loki had to decide on one so quickly when he is the God of Chaos and Fickleness.

No, that’s not it.

His nose twitches. Something is not right. The chimes in Billy’s room down the hall stir, their faint tinkling just reaching Loki’s ears. The acrid smell of sulfur hits his senses, and then he is choking on it, his eyes watering. He sits up, head spinning, to see the black rings left by Daimon burning red like dying embers, and from the center of them, something is emerging.

Something’s jaw opens like a chasm, a screech from its throat like nails grinding against a board. It is scaled in dark ruby, and angular and thin, and it pulls its body from the ember rings easily, before Loki can reach for the dagger under his bedside table.

Keep one under your pillow, too, Natasha always reminds him, and Loki never puts one there. What does he have in his pockets? Useless Midgardian coins and a stick of gum. Not even his chalk to draw an X with.

He has just enough time to leap, to fling himself toward the coal dust on his carpet and run his finger through the line, interrupting the ring, and to yell, “Dai—!” before the demon is upon him, and he feels flames licking his insides, burning him from his core, and then everything fades to gray.

//

It is a lot of like sleeping, and when he wakes up he finds himself strapped to a gurney in the medical floor, and his face is wet like he’s been crying. He swallows and tastes blood.

From his chair, Clint says, “You back, buddy?”

And Loki manages to croak, throat hurting like he’s been screaming for days, “How long?”

It is Daimon who answers: “Forty-two hours.” Loki whimpers and the other explains, “The demon escaped with you. We had to hunt it back down. It took some time.”

“Is it gone?” Loki asks, and they both say, “Yes.”

//

When he moved back to the Tower, they had put him up in his old room, and it was just as stark as it had been when he left. White walls, white sheets, black furniture. Someone had put a framed picture of Thor, Jane, and Darcy on the wall by the large windows, and a note had been taped to the glass. _Welcome back,_ in Jane’s tiny, barely legible scrawl. _My number has changed. Call me!_ And the number had been written underneath, signed _With Love, Jane._

He threw out the flowers on his dresser. Flowers withered and died.

Loki didn’t have many possessions. The few that he did have were books, and only the ones that had not burned in the destruction that Surtur caused. Books and his electronic gadgets. He had outgrown all the clothing left in his closet.

The first few days were peaceful. He sat in the living room fiddling with his Starkpad while Billy read his textbooks, a mountain of syllabi and articles piled around him on the couch. He learned that Billy had a boyfriend named Teddy who could shapeshift, that he had a twin brother named Tommy who spoke as fast as he ran, that once he found that he could level a whole city with a thought. “If we’re going to be teammates,” Billy said on a break between his texts, “You have to tell me a little bit about yourself, or at least be willing to communicate, you know?”

Tommy had been there, too, buzzing around and eating all the ice cream in their freezer. “Maybe he just doesn’t like your face,” he said. “I don’t know - you have that sort of face.”

“We have the same face,” Billy argued, turning a little red. “We’re _twins_.”

“But _mine_ is framed by this fabulous silver hair,” his twin retorted, flipping his hair for emphasis. Then Tommy ate all the chocolate-dipped ice cream bars that were left, except for one, which he presented to Loki in a rush of misplaced air.

“Thank you,” Loki said, just to be cheeky, ducking his head to hide his grin at their wide-eyed reactions.

Tommy exclaimed, “It talks!” and then just to be reactionary Loki did not speak for the rest of the week.

The second week, Clint landed in the medical floor with three broken ribs and a serious blow to the head. Loki replenished the darts to the board that was installed across from him. Clint wasn’t really supposed to be raising his arms above his shoulder while his ribs healed, so he came up with a way to sidearm the darts at which he quickly became adept. Loki sat with him while he recovered, and collected the darts from their targets when Clint had thrown them all.

“The tables have turned,” Clint told him one afternoon, as Loki handed him his darts. He started throwing them again with a _thunk_ each time the needle stuck. “Now I’m the one laying around and you’re the one smuggling in knives.”

Loki shrugged and threw one of his own darts, standing before the chair he had dragged over to the bed earlier. He wasn’t quite as good as Hawkeye, but his aim was definitely improving.

“She’s sorry about that, you know. How people kept bothering you after they found the knives. Also, she really liked that set. Specially commissioned and everything.”

_Thunk,_ went Clint’s dart.

_Thunk,_ went Loki’s.

“Plus, we both knew you weren’t going to do anything stupid with them.”

_Thunk._

_Thunk.  
_  
“Right?” Clint asked, suddenly unsure. “Hey,” he said softly, putting the dart down and placing a warm hand on Loki’s arm. “Right?”

He hadn’t. He hadn’t, but at that moment he felt the strength drain from his arms and then his legs and then he was sitting in the chair, and the air was static in his lungs. The dart in his fingers clattered to the floor.

“What happened to you?” Clint murmured, and his hand was so, so warm.

“Everything,” Loki managed, voice grating from disuse. “Nothing. I don’t know. I woke up and everything was lost.”

“You still had Thor. You had me. You had Tony. The Avengers.”

It wasn’t enough, Loki wanted to tell him, though he wished it had been. It was not just that; it was everything and nothing. It was Ikol’s last appearance in this world and his ominous warnings, before his familiar was reduced to a small green gem on the burning rock floor. It was Thori’s betrayal and Leah’s short, wonderful, heartbreaking return. It was all of Asgard turned against him, _again_ , even though he could not remember the first few times it had happened (because those times hadn’t been him, Dr. Mason reminded him frequently). It was in that final moment, when the many gears of his plan clicked into place and he was faced with Surtur and his raging Engel Fire, and Loki had thought, _Enough. At least Thor will be spared, and closed his green eyes._

And then he had woken up.

For just a minutia of a moment, he had been disappointed. How could Clint ever understand?

“I know,” he said instead. “It just took me a while to remember. But your ugly mug will haunt me forever, Mr. Barton.” He flashed him a toothy grin, one he knew the archer would recognize.

“Your ugly mug will haunt me forever, _Clint_ ,” the injured man corrected. “When you call me Mr. Barton it just makes me feel old, or like your teacher.”

“Mr. Stark doesn’t mind it,” Loki pointed out.

“Mr. Stark doesn’t mind anything that feeds his own ego, and you calling him that is just one way it’s fed.”

They picked up the darts again, and when he was well Clint filched one of Stark’s credit cards so they could buy Loki some new jeans.

//

They tell him the demon is gone, but sometimes he catches the others looking at him as though there were a shadow on his shoulder, tiny frowns on their faces. For a few days after, he looks in the mirror and has to check, finds sharp eyebrows and black hair and nothing out of place, so he smiles to himself and startles at a row of sharp teeth in his grin. Gasps and looks again - just a trick of the light.

“I mean, it isn’t like I’ve swallowed the demon. It’s gone - they said so themselves!” Loki complains to Tommy about the eyes that he’s been receiving from others. Tommy is mashing all the keys of his controller with blurred fingers. They are sitting cross-legged on the couch, with Teddy on the floor in front of them. Whatever game they are playing on the television involves a lot of explosions and screaming and curses from Tommy while Teddy smiles blithely. Loki watches with detached obligation. Video games have never held his interest, Loki finds, much as he enjoys Midgardian technology.

“They’re probably just worried that you’re going to turn _evil_ ,” Tommy chirps, followed closely by an expletive as Teddy kills him on screen.

“I’m sure they’re just worried about _you_ , Loki,” Teddy says, rolling his eyes at his boyfriend’s twin’s dramatic flail of his limbs. “Being possessed is no small thing.”

“Being _evil_ is no small thing. Ow!” Fast as he may be, Speed has never quite gotten the hang of avoiding Hulkling’s duffs. And Teddy’s fist packs quite the punch. “That _hurts_ , man!”

“Would it kill you to think a little before you open your mouth?” Teddy says by way of apology.

“Yes. Yes, it would.”

“It’s all right,” Loki assures them both. “I’ve been told I have a rather thick skin. Sticks and stones, you know?”

“Dude, you’re the God of _Lies_. Don’t give me that ‘words will never hurt me’ bull. Oh, _I got you now._ ” Tommy tilts the controller as he’s playing, as though the pull of the thing in his hands will affect his avatar in the game, grinning like a cat. Below them both, Teddy groans as the television fades to red. He tosses his controller to the side and begins to stand. His bulk blocks Loki’s view of the screen.

“I’m done. Going to check up on Billy. You guys want to grab food, later?”

“Why is that even a question? I always want to grab food. And this young fella is a giant, so, you know. Appetite.” There’s a whir of noise as Loki’s hair flies up around him in a halo and Tommy disappears from the couch. When his hair has settled around his face again Tommy is sitting again beside him and all of the electronics have been put away. “Right?” he asks, leaning in to peer at Loki’s face. “I bet you could polish off a whole suckling pig just like Thor and still have room for an apple pie.”

“I don’t want to bet you, because I in fact can do those things, and also I’m not supposed to make unnecessary deals…as per Mr. Stark’s suggestion.” As they are speaking Teddy wanders away with a wave, towards Billy’s room.

“Stark, huh? How’s that hunk of iron doing? And by hunk of iron I mean _hunk_ , eh? Am I right, or am I right?” Tommy waggles his eyebrows and Loki snorts, because he could imagine Tony saying the same exact words. Sometimes he thinks this is why he gets along so well with Tommy; the speedster may not have multiple degrees in bio-engineering and physics, but he could teach his own class in snark and ego.

“Shall I put in a good word for you? I had no idea that he appealed to you in that way. I thought your type to be more…curvaceous. And female.”

“I’m not picky,” he says, smirking. “Except when I am.”

A lull in the conversation and Tommy sighs, a quick exhalation of breath. “No, but seriously. You seem to be doing okay post-exorcism. At least you haven’t gone Grudge on us or anything.”

“Grudge? I am not nursing any grudges. None that I am currently acting upon, anyway.”

“It’s a - never mind. Bottom line is that you’re not any more demonic than you were before, so that’s awesome. Wanna race? There’s this ice cream place in Toronto that I want to try. And by ‘ice cream place’ I mean they hire models as their servers and let’s just say their dress code is very, extremely pleasing.” He rattles off an address that Loki quickly commits to memory.

“Three, two, one,” Loki counts down, poised with his piece of chalk. It isn’t just any piece of chalk, of course. His are specially created in Tony’s lab (of which Loki has partitioned off his own little work table in the corner) with adamantium particles in the mix as the chalk sets, and then worked over with a complicated sequence of spells that required the help, again, of Shatterstar (who spoke incessantly about some energy called ‘mojo’ and also tried to kiss Loki as soon as they were introduced, much to the amusement of everyone except for a sullen man named Rictor). Just as he’s about to say ‘go!’ there is a shift in the air, a flash of fire, and then he’s behind the couch with Tommy’s hand on his shoulder, and Tommy is standing, glaring at the flame-covered figure in the middle of their living room -

“Oh, come on!” Tommy grumbles when he realizes who their visitor is. “Can’t you just use the elevators like a normal person?”

“I am not a _normal_ person,” Daimon growls with great irritation, using the toe of his boot to stamp out the remaining flames and to shuffle around the coal dust. A lesson learned from last time.

“Daimon!” Loki calls in greeting, scrambling to stand. “What brings you to the Tower? Has there been an attack? Do you require assistance? I shall round up the Avengers!” He makes to dash when Daimon clears his throat loudly, and Loki stills, peering over his shoulder at him.

“There is no immediate danger. I merely came to…see how you were doing.” He switches his grip a few times on his trident, eyes never settling on one place. “Sometimes there are lingering effects, you see. Thoughts that do not seem quite your own; images, hallucinations. Have you been experiencing any of these things?”

Tommy mutters, “How cheerful,” under his breath while Loki remembers that one time he looked into the mirror and found shark teeth. That one time he was chatting with Captain Rogers and ignoring the shadow that kept moving behind the soldier. “Nothing of the sort,” he tells Daimon, smiling. He turns fully back to him and leans his elbows against the high back of the couch. “Though I appreciate your concern.”

“Are you sure?” Daimon presses. “The thoughts may be so similar to your own that they do not seem foreign; the images may be just momentary flickers. Dreams that you don’t remember having. You may be more susceptible to —”

“I’m sure,” Loki interrupts, grin firmly in place. “Tommy and I were just about to race to Toronto. Would you like to join us for ice cream?” The silver-haired twin shoots him a withering glare, but Loki ignores it.

There is a pause where Daimon searches Loki’s face for something. A chink in the mask, maybe? A tell that he is lying? But he must not find it, because he merely grumbles again. Loki’s tongue turns to cotton under the attention. “I would rather not race for ice cream. My business here is done. Until next time, Loki.” And he disappears in a flash of flame.

“Rude,” Tommy points out. “Didn’t even acknowledge my existence, which is like, how can you not acknowledge this awesomeness?”

It takes a moment for his knees to regain stability, and then he and Tommy have their race.

Loki wins, of course, but only because Tommy says he got a little lost along the way.

//

Thor is there, arrived by a forked flash of lightning in the middle of the night, when the sun rises. He greets his brother in the hallway before the floor opens into the kitchen and living room with a tight, warm hug while Loki is still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and apologizes profusely, Thor’s armor squeaking as it tries to mold to Loki’s form.

“I am sorry to be so delayed. Stark kept me updated as much as he could, but you know that I have never mastered the art of ‘texting.’ You are well?” He holds him at arms’ length, examining his younger brother with a battle-hardened eye, and frowns. “You have grown thin!” he exclaims.

Loki flushes. “I have not! I have grown. Soon I suspect I will be just as tall as you, like before. Besides, currently you are the one keeping me from having a full, belly-busting breakfast suitable for a half-Frost-Giant,” he snaps, suddenly irritable, but Thor only grins at his quick temper.

“Ah, you are well then, if you can speak such words.”

“If you have just gotten in overnight,” Loki begins, placing his hand over his brother’s on his shoulder, “then you must be hungry. Your supply of Poptarts has unfortunately run out and has not been replenished - no one else really eats them on this floor, though I do like sugary things in the morning.” They walk to the kitchen together, close enough that Thor’s warmth brushes against Loki’s cool skin. “How do you feel about blueberry pancakes?” he asks, only to find Thor with Mjolnir drawn and his stance ready for combat.

Loki looks to where Thor is glaring and sighs. “Really, Mr. Hellstrom, you must stop showing up unannounced. You’re going to give someone a heart attack,” he chides playfully. “And Thor, you know Daimon Hellstrom. He’s been visiting lately, a lot.”

“Hellstrom,” Thor acknowledges lowly with a nod of his head, standing fully upright again and straightening his armor. The exorcist sits at the breakfast bar, a glass of orange juice in hand.

“Good morning,” Loki greets, much more cheerfully. “I was just about to make some blueberry pancakes. The good Captain taught me how. Would you like some?” He pouts a little when Thor pushes past him to confront their visitor. Loki places his hands on his hips and rolls his eyes while Thor crosses his arms, feet planted firmly in place.

“What brings you to the Tower, Hellstrom?” Thor asks of him, not waiting for a reply to Loki’s breakfast invitation.

Daimon’s eyes flicker to Loki, who shifts at the intensity of his gaze. “In truth, I was worried for your brother, Thunderer.”

“What reason have you to worry? I thank you for your help in ridding the demon that plagued him, and surely that is all there was?” His stance changes; his arms loosen and he turns to look at Loki, who is busying himself with whipping up some pancake batter out of a box and adding fresh blueberries into the mix.

“Yesterday when I dropped by,” Daimon explains a little awkwardly, “it was because I felt that business here was…unfinished.”

“You sensed a disturbance in the force,” Loki mutters as he steals a blueberry from the basket. It pops sweetly in his mouth.

“What was that?” Thor asks.

“Nothing.”

“You mean to say that the banishment of the demon may be hard won,” Thor continues to Daimon, turning back to him with renewed interest.

“I mean to say that for a few days after an exorcism, the hosts may be more susceptible to other demonic activity. They may be _sensitive_ to such things.”

He feels his brother’s attention on him without having to look as he’s turning on the stovetop and oiling the skillet. “Is that so.”

“Yesterday, when I asked, Loki told me there was no reason to worry, but I left feeling dissatisfied.”

He burns the first pancake on one side for the inexplicable wave of nausea that passes over him and leaves him gulping for breath but hiding it well. It’s the heat of the stove, he thinks.

“Did you speak the truth, Loki, when Hellstrom asked after you yesterday?”

He flips another pancake over, this one a perfect golden brown dotted with the juices of those berries, and turns to look Thor in the eyes. “I did, brother.”

Thor’s gaze does not waver, and Loki is the one to break it first, and he plates a few pancakes and puts a few more into the skillet.

“I believe him,” Thor says. “Now, please, help yourself to some breakfast foods. I am quite fond of the condiment that Midgardians call ‘maple syrup.’”

And that is that.

Loki ignores the shudder in his chest and brings the maple syrup down from its perch in the cabinets, swiping the back of his hand across his eyes quickly as he does so.

//

Thor wants to make a day of it - to explore the fine city in a tourist fashion. But Daimon doesn’t leave after breakfast and tells them that he wishes to put up some wards around their floor, just as a precaution. Thor sees no harm in it, and he and Loki leave to their rooms to get ready for the day. For Loki, this means a quick shower and check in the mirror at his teeth after he wipes away the condensation. As he grins genuinely at the lack of overly pointy teeth in his reflection, he hears his bedroom door hiss open and closed softly, and footsteps. “Who’s there?” he calls.

It just Daimon’s voice that answers: “It’s me.”

Loki lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. The bathroom door clicks open as he’s toweling his hair, and Daimon stumbles out of view from the doorframe with an exclamation.

“It’s automatic unless I switch it off,” Loki explains cheekily. At least he was wearing a shirt and his boxers. “Did you need something?” He steps out of the bathroom to see Daimon staring out his window.

“Wanted to put up wards,” Daimon says into the glass.

“Yes, I knew that.”

“And I think that you are trying to hide it from me,” he says, with more conviction, straightening and turning to face Loki, whose skin is still damp and whose hair is curling around his face as it dries.

“Thor believes me,” the trickster says around the lump forming in his throat, twisting his ring around his finger.

“Your brother is a fool.”

“You don’t get to call him that,” Loki hisses, feeling a charge in the air, and he follows this feeling to Daimon as he stalks to him by the window. He thinks about Leah, about bad boys and leather and power, and he misses her so much. His ring is hot around his finger. His fist is curled into the leather of Daimon’s jacket, and he’s breathing hard. Bad, Loki thinks, wonderful heat rising around him, so different from Thor’s warmth, because this heat burns him, burns his ice-touched skin and he deserves it, he wants it.

The kiss surprises them both. The air is stamped out of Loki’s lungs, and his heart pounds so hard that it hurts his ears. His blood boils in his veins. It’s so, so wrong. So he tries it again, Daimon’s eyes red like fire.

But Daimon stops him with his fingers over Loki’s lips, and Loki whimpers.

“We can’t do this,” Daimon tells him. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me,” Loki is quick to say. “I know you won’t. You saved me, from the demon.”

“I’m not a savior for you to worship,” Daimon says, wavering.

“I don’t want you to be - When has Loki ever wanted for a savior? Just - _quick!_ \- kiss me!”

They meet in a rush, Loki pulling and Daimon resistant, but in the end Loki wins, and the kiss is horrible, leaves Loki lighthearted and panting and weak. The fire drains him, hollows him out. It feels wonderful.

“Your brother,” Daimon says in a rush before taking a step back and disappearing, smoke floating above Loki’s head as his door hisses open again and Thor steps through, dressed in jeans and a plaid shirt. His smile disappears when he sees Loki flushed against the glass of the window.

“Are you well?” he asks, concerned.

“I am, brother,” Loki says, smiling wide over his wolf teeth. “I am.”

//


	3. Chapter 3

03.

There isn’t a spike in demonic activity, but a slow rise as the Avengers deal with the danger as it occurs so that it seems that one day they are managing and the next they are overrun. It’s all hands on deck, and by the time there is a lull in activity at dawn on Sunday Loki’s chalk has worn down to a nugget and his palm is criss-crossed with angry red lines. Billy sleeps like the dead while Tommy speeds around putting out literal and metaphorical fires with a small team. As a godling he is mostly unaffected by days of lacking sleep, but even he bears small signs of exhaustion - pale with the beginnings of bruising under his eyes that are unnaturally bright with the artificial zing of energy drinks. As he looks into the mirror in his bathroom he thinks of Nightmare, Lord of Dreams, and fear.

He smiles, checking his teeth, and that is when Mr. Stark finds him, as pale and drawn as Loki, but definitely more exhausted. The engineer leans against the door frame and gives him a returning smile, slim in his dark underarmor.

“Well, that was exciting,” he says. Then he says, “Holy Christ, what happened to your hand?” striding forward and taking Loki’s hand where he had been unknowingly picking at the wounds. It stings when Tony touches him, so he snatches his hand back.

“It’s nothing. It will heal.”

“Yeah, looks like a whole lotta nothing,” and Tony glares at him in a way that makes Loki feel sheepish. “Show me.”

After a brief internal struggle, Loki shows him. Very gently, Tony examines his hand, eyes roving over the crossing of lines; he must see how old some of the scars are, and also how new. Loki braces himself for the unnecessary concern, for the worry that always just makes him feel guilty and superfluous.

Tony says, “These are runes,” and that is all. He looks up at Loki for confirmation.

Stunned, Loki nods.

“So, you carve the rune into your skin, and the blood acts as an exchange. Blood for power. That’s how you are able to make the pentagrams stronger, and other occult mumbo-jumbo.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” He examines Loki’s hand once more. “Fascinating.”

No worry, no guilt, no disappointment. Just observations and Tony’s mind working quickly over new information. Loki’s breath staccatos.

“Let’s get the first aid kit,” Tony says to his hand. “We don’t want this to get infected.”

They move to Loki’s bed and Tony tells him to sit while he pulls up a chair. He gives him a rag to bite down on as he brushes disinfectant over the wounds, and Loki grimaces through the fire spreading up his arm but does not scream. They dry the cuts and Tony wraps his hand up in gauze, smiling at his handiwork. Loki’s entire arm tingles and he feels lightheaded at the treatment. “All better,” Tony announces in a sing-song voice. “Now go to sleep; you look like death warmed over.”

“You look no better, Mr. Stark,” he counters, but already he is drifting, his head resting on his soft pillow and the glow of the arc reactor a constant warmth.

Tony says, “I’ll be right here,” and Loki falls asleep.

The respite doesn’t last long. At sundown the chimes in Billy’s room start a ruckus, and it all begins with a particularly large and spiky creature rising from its portal just outside the Tower. Luckily, Thor is there, and he simply smites the thing with a roar and crackle of potent white lightning. From his vantage point at Loki’s window, Stark smirks. “I’m pretty sure he just yelled, ‘No!’ at that demon before the lightning. _Someone’s_ running a little low on banter juice.”

“Which is something I know that you have an excess of.” Tony turns and raises an eyebrow at him; Loki raises his own in reply. “Very well. I suppose you need to get your suit ready. I will survey the Upper West Side area for activity and --”

“Oh, no,” Tony interrupts. “No, no, and no. You’re not going anywhere. _You_ need rest.”

“ _I_ have rested enough,” Loki argues, eyes narrowing as he pulls himself higher on his bed. “I can help. I _will._ ”

“You can leave this to us,” Tony says with an air of finality, taking hurried steps to the door. “You will stay here where it’s safe.”

“Do not _coddle_ me,” Loki yells at his friend’s back, fists clenching in anger. “I am not a child!” He reaches into his pocket and gasps when he finds they are empty.

“I’m not coddling you. You need to rest. In safety.” He is calm and serene and matter-of-fact. Tony holds something white and round up between his thumb and forefinger, and Loki nearly screams in frustration when he realizes what it is. “So you can’t escape,” Tony explains, pocketing Loki’s carefully created chalk.

“Give that back! It’s mine!” He’s leaping out of bed, diving to the door, but he’s too slow. The door shuts with Tony on the other side, and a low beep that follows soon after confirms that it has been locked. He pounds his fists into the glass. “This is unfair!”

“I’ll be back by sunrise,” Tony says, voice muffled, and then he is gone.

Loki kicks and beats the door with his fists, but it’s no use. Jarvis has locked the circuits, and Mr. Stark will be the only who can -

Wait.

A smile creeps slowly across his lips as he takes his Starkphone into his hands, the gauze and adrenaline making him fumble with the electronic device. He is Loki, God of Mischief, and no closed door will keep him from making trouble.

//

Follow the commotion and the screams. Loki runs, with his dagger at his hip and some handfuls of salt and a few silver coins in a pouch over his shoulder. He runs up 6th Avenue past drivers stuck in traffic and horns honking and pedestrians who are beginning to turn the other way, eyes bewildered, like frightened sheep, to run toward Loki, past Loki, downtown. The pedestrians block his way so Loki merges into traffic, leaps across the roofs of yellow taxis and rolls down their windshields. As he passes 76th street, a shadow catches his eye.

He skids to a stop, turns, in time for an ugly black shape to fall upon him. Someone in the crowd screams, and then they are all screaming. Screaming and pointing as Loki holds the thing by its oily neck so that its snapping teeth cannot reach him. Its claws burn when it scratches, and the wounds smoke. With his free hand Loki swiftly pulls his dagger from his hip and forces the point through its forehead, bottom jaw limply hinged open. The thing doesn’t crumble to dust like he expected, so he has to push the corpse off of him, and he rolls away in disgust. The dagger takes a grunting yank to be freed, and he cleans it on the bottom of his boot.

“Are you okay?” a brave pedestrian asks him, one who is inching closer. An older woman, just frail enough to need helping across the street from a kind citizen. Loki throws some salt on the demon, just in case, watching with small satisfaction as its skin bubbles on contact with the mineral. To the woman, he smiles, slightly breathless.

“I’m fine. Where is everyone running from?”

The woman points up 6th Avenue. “The building I live in on 86th and 6th was being evacuated,” she explains. “You’re not going _up_ there, are you? You may be the prince-hero type but you can’t be any older than my grandson! What are the Avengers doing, dragging children into their mess?”

“I’m not a child,” Loki tells her. “I’m a god.”

“Oh,” she says. “Well, that explains a lot. You better get up there, then. I’m re-evaluating my religious views even as we speak! I think this is New York’s ‘come to Jesus’ moment, or whatever god that’s doing the saving.” She waves him along. “You go along, little god.”

“Bless you,” Loki says, for her frank kindness. It may not offer her any real protection save for a boosted sense of redeem-ability. Then he keeps running.

He knows he’s in the right place when he sees Captain America flying from the fourth floor of a parking complex as if thrown and crashing into a parked car across the street, smashing in its roof.

“Captain!” he calls, running to him. “Are you all right?”

“Loki? What are you --”

“I am here to help.”

Rogers rolls off the car with a groan. “Stark’s not going to like this,” he says more to himself than to Loki. “Listen, there are a _lot_ of them in there, and Hellstrom and Wiccan are holding their own, but they need help to keep them contained. They’re trying to close the portal, but it’s too powerful. Strange is needed in his current position. Can you close the portal with the two others?”

Loki thinks, three is better than two; a triangle is better than a line. He knows the runes. Hellstrom and Wiccan can provide the power. “Yes,” he says with a nod. “I can do it.”

“Okay.” He looks at Loki like he’s about to say something else, but then he presses the communication device in his ear and shouts, “I’m good. Coming back up with Loki. Over.” Someone must say something in reply because he continues after a moment, “Well, he’s here now and he says he can help!”

They don’t take the stairs. Rogers gives him a boost with his shield (a trick that Natasha taught him a little after he arrived at the Tower) and he climbs the rest of the way, the Captain following close behind.

The fourth floor of the garage is all gray concrete and heat making waves across the cars that have been pushed to the sides by some unseen force. In the center of it all is a pulsing, roiling pit about the size of one of the vans on this level, through which claws and tails and sharp teeth are writhing, like the pit will retch them out into existence into this world. Many have already escaped the pit, only to be confined by concentric circles of blue and red, Hellstrom and Wiccan’s attempts to contain them as they stalk the boundaries and lash out at the heroes or at each other.

As Loki nears, one demon strikes at the barrier repeatedly until Wiccan falls to a knee, and it stops suddenly to observe the human. If a sneer were possible on its disfigured face, Loki guesses he would have seen it then. Wiccan’s been studying, but powerful as he may be demon activity and the magic related to it are not things that comes naturally to him. The demon strikes again, and Wiccan cries out, and there is a breach. The spindly creature escapes, the barrier closing up again behind it in a flare of red as Hellstrom tries to strengthen the bonds, but Loki can see the lines have grown weaker, that there have already been many escapes.

Iron Man blasts at the escaped demon once, but misses and curses as it skitters up the walls and between the shadows. His suit is scraped up, Loki notices.

Finally, Iron Man catches it, and it dies with a curdling scream that echoes in the walled-in space: “ _We are rising._ ”

Loki pulls out his dagger again, already seeing the runes for confinement and closing that he must carve. It will be complicated and call for a bigger exchange.

So focused is he on the runes that when Iron Man lands with a clang in front of him he is surprised, caught unawares. Stark strikes the dagger from his hands and Loki yelps. “No more blood magic, Loki!” he commands through his mask, and it twists his voice into something different.

“I am _helping_ ,” he says, anger curling around his words. His suit is scraped up, and Loki doesn’t have his dagger. “Step aside!” He brings his forearm down on a sharp edge of the suit and then pushes Iron Man away with all of his strength. He crashes into the wall and slumps, though Loki knows he is only stunned. Blood runs freely down his arm, now. It will be enough, he hopes.

He drops to his knees by the circles and drags his finger through the blood, already cooling, but quickly replaced as his heart beats. He writes, and he writes, and he writes, vision dotting. On the final rune he waits, and then he blows frosty breath over the script. The effect is instantaneous.

He feels the moment in which Wiccan and Hellstrom lend him their power, and then they are forced back as the rings glow white and then an angry red, and the demons inside howl like something is being ripped from them, the portal sucking them back like a vacuum, but it is Loki that howls the loudest as his blood boils and sings, his body frozen and bound to the runes as they work their magic. It always takes something, he knows. Sometimes blood is not enough.

Distantly, he hears footsteps, and knows someone means to interfere. “No, _don’t_!” he calls out. “It’ll be over in a moment.”

And it is. The last demon sucked up and the rings flash white again once before smoldering, and Loki can finally snatch his hands away from the runes, falls flat on his back and immediately has to turn to heave bile onto the pavement. His arm bleeds sluggishly, and he feels cold all over. It takes a moment for him to realize that he is shaking.

Above him, Tony’s face framed in Iron Man’s mask appears, eyebrows furrowed in worry and sweat dripping from the tip of his nose. “Tell me you’re okay. Tell me you’re okay,” he’s saying.

Loki can’t; if he tries to say anything at this moment he’ll surely bite off his tongue, so he gives him a shaky smile, instead. “Oh my god,” Tony breathes. “What did you _do_?” He looks sad, Loki thinks, confusedly, because the demons are gone.

“I will bring him back to the Tower,” comes Daimon’s voice, softer than usual.

“ _I_ can do that,” says Billy.

“He needs _medical attention_ ,” Steve and Tony say at the same time.

“ ‘m fine,” Loki mumbles as the shaking subsides. “Don’t need it.” Rogers sweeps a gentle over Loki’s forehead and frowns at the coldness he finds there. He’s crouched next to him while Tony hovers worriedly and Billy kneels at Loki’s feet. Someone scoops an arm underneath his shoulders to help Loki sit, but the motion brings a wave of dizziness over him, and he clutches at the nearest thing for stability. This nearest thing happens to be the lapels of Daimon’s coat.

“I don’t like this, Loki,” Stark says, forehead wrinkling. “The magic is taking something from you.”

“ ‘m fine,” Loki manages again, burrowing into the rustic smell and warmth of the leather.

Steve nods, agreeing with Tony. “It’s dangerous.”

“The demons have gone and the job is done,” Loki says in a strengthening voice. “What does it matter?”

“It matters!” Tony protests immediately, metal joints creaking as he raises his arms in emphasis. “This magic is dangerous and it’s changing you. I feel it changing you!”

“I _helped_ you!” Loki cries. “Would you rather the creatures escaped?”

“That’s not the point. That’s _so_ not the point.” Tony subsides almost immediately, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

That is when Daimon interrupts and tells them all, “I can bring him back _safely_ ,” with a pointed look at Billy, who is still trying to improve his teleportation skills. “And his arm will heal with some proper care. He worked some very powerful magic just now, and I will see to him.”

He’s picked up completely off the ground and held against a very warm chest. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Tony open his mouth to make some other argument, but his fingers grasp at Daimon’s leather jacket, and then he is in his room, being placed gently onto the floor, feet first. He stands, numbly, dripping blood onto the carpet, until Daimon returns and pushes a piece of dark chocolate between his lips and he sucks on the sweet bitterness. He leads Loki to his bathroom, and makes him sit on the toilet while he cleans his arm and bandages it, while he wipes a fresh, wet towel over Loki’s face, and then he makes him gurgle mouthwash to rid the taste and fuzz in his mouth.

It’s nice, when Daimon makes him peel off his tunic to be replaced by a loose-fitting t-shirt, to slip between his sheets in his boxers and to see Daimon’s eyes burning like coals. He twists his ring around his finger, the gem glowing as green as his eyes and the metal warm to the touch. “Take off your jacket,” Loki says, voice hoarse from screaming. “Come on.”

For a moment Daimon looks unsure, but then Loki says it again, “come _on_ ,” and Daimon does, and his shoulders are glorious and bare and Loki catches hold of Daimon’s wrists and pulls, catches hold of his lips and presses. Pretty soon Daimon is pressing back, and it scalds where he touches him, little pepper kisses down his neck and collarbone, flares of heat at his wrists and between his fingers and his toes curl into the mattress. It burns beautifully and horribly, reminds him of blood magic and exchanges and power. It’s wrong and it hurts and he hisses when Daimon flips their hands, so that his palm presses against Loki’s wound, but he doesn’t tell him to stop because the burns will fade away, eventually.

He sinks into the heat, drowns in fire.

This time, it is Billy who interrupts them.

This time, Daimon does not disappear soon enough, and Billy sees them from the doorway, blood staining the gauze wrapped around Loki’s arm, lips wet and Daimon caging the young god like some beast.

“What do you think you are _doing_?” Billy whispers, eyes wide, and Loki wants to cry, but the water’s been burned out of him.


	4. Chapter 4

“He’ll ‘ _see to him_ ’, all right,” Billy hisses, pacing. Loki has never seen him so angry, so impassioned. Daimon had fled, leaving charcoal dust across Loki’s nose, and then Loki really had cried, silent and brief, and Billy had alternated between righteous anger and soothing care. “I could _rip_ him to pieces.”

“Dude, you’re being really scary right now,” Tommy tells his twin, an arm draped protectively over Loki’s shoulders while they sit, hunched, on the edge of the younger’s bed. He had appeared in the doorway soon after Billy’s discovery, claiming ‘twin senses.’

“Don’t tell anyone,” Loki says in a small voice. “Please.”

“I should,” Billy rages. “I _should_ tell someone. Tony, or Steve, or - _hell_ \- Thor! Thor would just --” He claps his hands to mimic the crack of thunder that Loki’s brother is known for, and resumes pacing. “ _Hellstrom_ ,” he seethes.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Loki repeats, exhausted. “I made a mistake.”

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.” Billy shakes his head, gets down on in his knees before Loki. “Look at me,” he says gently. Loki looks. “ _You_ did not make a mistake. Do you hear me? It’s not _your_ fault. Do you understand?”

Loki nods, even though he doesn’t. It _was_ his fault. He pushed and pulled and nipped and _wanted_ , and Daimon had simply responded. It didn’t have to be anything more. He doesn’t quite understand why Billy is throwing up such a commotion, nor why he feels such horrible guilt at being caught. Tommy rubs his shoulder with the palm of his hand and says, “What my stupid twin is trying to say is that it was unfair of Hellstrom. It’s unfair _to you_.”

“I know it was,” he confesses. “That was the point.”

Billy freezes, stop pacing. The twins stare at his concession; Tommy opens and closes his mouth a few times like a fish gulping for water on land.

“I just,” Billy begins, still kneeling. “I just wish you would take care of yourself, Loki. Why can’t you do that?”

“Why can’t I do that?” Loki asks, unsure if he’s repeating Billy’s question or posing his own. “Hm.”

Billy presses his forehead to Loki’s knee and sighs. “I have to talk to Teddy,” he says, drained.

Tommy nods. “I’ll, ah, stay here. Hold on.” He disappears from Loki’s side and reappears again in his pajamas. “Can I play with your Starkpad?” Loki hands it over.

Billy leaves, and he and Tommy share the bed, the glow of the Starkpad so much like another warm light.

//

They don’t tell anyone, and Daimon stays out of reach, always busy with something and like a shadow sliding out of the room whenever Loki is near.

It seems the activity at the garage and various other locations was a last major uprising, and sightings and alarms begin to taper off until just two team members are needed to rotate on watch, and the rest can pass well-deserved time at the Tower.

Loki rests, and his arm heals. Multiple times he finds Billy at his door, shifty and unsure, before he mumbles an excuse and turns away. A change in the air at different times during the day suggests that Tommy has been charged with secret check-ins. They are monitoring him, so he makes it as boring for them as possible.

He flips through books on his Starkpad for hours during the day, or watches videos on YouTube, or stares at his ceiling while lying flat on his back in his bed. He imagines scenarios in which he had grown up as one of Billy’s younger brothers, or Tony Stark had been his father, or Leah had stayed past her purpose. He imagines Daimon appearing in his room and stealing him away into some realm, some castle, some home - it doesn’t matter, really - and they kiss and they hunt and everything is simple, purposeful, and Daimon doesn’t expect anything from Loki that Loki doesn’t want to provide. Loki touches his fingers to his lips, and they tingle.

A few breakfasts later, Tony appears at the morning meal on their floor where Loki is helping himself to his third bowl of cereal and slams a heavy, fat book on the counter across from Loki’s seat at the breakfast bar. A cloud of dust rises from the pages. America, who has only just made it back to the city, gives Loki a sly smile and slides off her own stool and carries her own bowl of cereal to her room. Loki watches her go with a look of betrayal.

Tony is very good at making silences awkward, but not very good at enduring awkward silences, so as soon as Loki turns back to give him and the book a questioning glance, the engineer clears his throat loudly and says, “So, look, sorry I said all that shit before,” and Loki can’t help but crack a smile at his curse because he still remembers the day that Mr. Stark announced that from that moment forward it was deemed perfectly all right to curse in front of the Norse child god. “And locked you in your room. Really uncool of me, I know. I mean, I still don’t like it, the blood magic, but you’re practically a real person now, being seventeen in human years and all, so you’re probably able to make your own decisions. The only thing I can do is give you some more options and hope that you’ll make other, better decisions that I would actually have decided for you, if given the chance.”

Loki lets him stew. Raises his eyebrow and finishes his cereal with the most amount of slurping possible. Even picks up the bowl to drain the milk at the bottom. The bowl returns to the counter with a chime. “I forgive you a little,” he says, resting his chin on his palm. “Now, is that for me?” He gestures to the book. It’s as thick as Loki’s wrist, bound in worn, black leather and embossed in gold. The writing on the cover is faded to nearly nothing, but Loki can make out the curving script of Arabic.

“It is,” Tony admits with a grave air. “I’m not very good at apologies, I’ve been told, so I supplement with material gifts. Pepper says I still seem insincere. Do I seem insincere?”

“No, not at all.” Loki runs a fingers down the binding of the book and shudders at the ancient feeling it releases - papyrus and star charts and first-born sons. “It’s very old,” he comments.

“I got it from a very old friend.”

“What’s the catch?” Loki asks, because there’s always a catch.

And Tony is ready for that question. “The catch is that you take this book and read about the spellwork and become familiar with this strand of magic and you make the decision not to dabble in blood magic anymore.”

Loki places his hand on top of the cover and smiles at the warmth it begins to emit. It’s not the fever heat of blood magic and the exorcist’s touches, but the bathing-in-the-sun glow of Thor’s physical presence and Tony’s arc reactor. The pages call to him, little rustlings whispering in his ears. He sighs, and feels the book sigh, too. “Okay,” he says.

“Okay?” Tony questions, disbelief in his expression. “That easy? Hey, not that I’m complaining, but that’s all? Just - so no more blood magic?”

“No more blood magic.” Loki nods, pulling the book towards him and sliding away the empty bowl and spoon. “I’m pretty _drained_ now, anyway,” he adds playfully.

“Great. Well, cross that off my list, and - _Hey_.” Tony smiles brightfully. “Was that a pun? That was a pun.”

He makes it through the book in two days, nose constantly buried in the volume when he’s in the common room with the others and reciting passages mentally when the book is out of sight. During this time, Daimon doesn’t visit, and Loki doesn’t miss him. This is okay, he thinks to himself as he finishes the final chapter on maintaining energy balance.

This is okay because he’s gathering knowledge. The book is a great source for it, for everything that he needs to take care of the little demon problem for good. He picks up a new piece of chalk from his limited supply in the workshop, thankful that Tony hadn’t thought to confiscate them all that day, and flips the book open to the chapter on summoning.

No blood required, Loki notes, thinking that Tony will be pleased. Not even a sacrifice. Just a certain time when the stars are in position, some crystals and candles, and a lot of will.

He gathers his materials into a messenger bag, pulls his hood over his head, and draws out his chalk. He scrapes the X on his headboard, thinking of Washington Square Park in this time of night, abandoned usually save for some of the homeless and some rats. Then, he pries open the edges of the rip in space until he can see the fountain of the Park between the drawn space, and crawls through.

Loki methodically makes the necessary preparations, angling the crystals around the circle, lighting the candles, and casting a quick repulsion spell to keep away curious bystanders. The messenger bag he places behind him where he’s seated. When the stars are in position, he remains cross-legged between the crystals and thinks, repeating in his mind like a mantra, _I, Loki of the Tower, summon thee, Legion_ , and then he waits.

He feels the moment the magic sinks its claws into him, hooks into him as easily as a hot knife slices through butter, and then it tightens like an anchor. The feeling, though, is not unpleasant. His skin prickles in anticipation and the magic digs deeper; the stars fall into place and Loki closes his eyes and sees the universe, its many bridges and gaps and worlds, and magic trickles to him, through him, from those far off places like dust motes in sunbeams. It is warm, and lovely, and when he opens his eyes again there is another pair looking back.

“Legion,” he murmurs, and his voice carries the universe. He dare not blink.

“Loki of the Tower,” the demon growls, “Why have you summoned me?” The demon is no larger than a fully grown Asgardian, but slim like a serpent. It is so dark a black all over that color seems to disappear around it and inside it, save for its two, glowing red eyes. It wears a crown of thorns, and holds itself like a human.

Perhaps, long ago, it was.

“I seek information,” Loki says evenly, “and perhaps an exchange.”

The demon curves its body forward in interest. “I would hear this exchange,” he says in a voice that reminds Loki, strangely, of Dr. Mason’s, dry as parchment and authoritative and _old_.

Loki does not blink, cannot look away. “Why have you sent your demons to this realm?”

“I once held power in this very realm, though many have forgotten.” It curls its long fingers into a fist before its eyes, and fire erupts around it. “I have no desire to answer your inane questioning, human.”

“I am not human,” Loki tells him flatly, “And you will because you must while I hold you. Do you answer to a higher power?” he asks.

“ _Yes,_ ” Legion hisses, the fire disappearing as it slashes a bladed hand through the flame.

“Were _you_ human?” Loki cannot help but ask, eyes smarting from staying open for so long, and three things happen at once:

He hears from behind him, the voice of Billy Kaplan shouting, “Loki!”; he turns and breaks eye contact, startled at the intrusion; the demon lunges toward the border of its summoning cage.

Legion breaks through, the crystals dimming immediately, and Loki ducks, but Billy is not so lucky.

“No!” Loki calls, as Legion’s shadow brushes over him and its body crashes into the pavement. It writhes, snaps towards Wiccan, who has only just crawled through Loki’s rip in space, and it connects.

Billy screams. He fights, but the demon seeps into his skin and takes over, and in the next moment his body crouches low, almost feline in grace, and then launches itself toward Loki, teeth bared and feral. It swings an arm and Loki ducks, tumbles away; it follows. Another attack and another block, and the thing growls, manic. “This one has power!” it howls, and blows a stream of fire in Loki’s direction. Loki springs over the flame, rolls, and reaches for his throwing knives - only to find them missing in action.

In his haste to gather materials for summoning, he had neglected to bring any of his choice weapons, and now all he has are his dagger and some chalk. The circle, though, remains unbroken, and if he can find a way to pass Billy through that enchantment...

The thing draws Billy’s hands together like he’s sweeping them through water, resistant against some force, and when the hands clap together the ground beneath Loki’s feet begin to shake. He leaps out of the way just as fire shoots up as if shot from a cannon, and leaps again when another is fired, and another, and another.

The thing grunts, frustrated, and Loki smirks. “What use is great power if the wielder is inept? Ha!” and then he turns and runs, laughing when the thing gives chase. “And you’re slow, too!” he taunts, pleased.

“I will feast on your entrails,” Legion tells him in Billy’s voice, and dives for the boy.

Loki is ready. He catches Billy’s momentum in his hands and adds his own force to the mix, and with a mighty heave, tosses Billy’s body clear across and away from him, and his trajectory passes over the summoning circle. With two feet planted at the edge, Loki watches as Billy passes through the cage but the demon is pulled from him, unable to pass the boundary at the other side. It lands in a messy sprawl at the opposite side of the circle, and immediately rises again with a horrible cry, stalking toward Loki with intent to maim.

Billy falls and Loki winces, but his attention remains upon the demon.

“Now that we’ve had your fun,” he tells it good-naturedly, “How about that exchange?”

The demon says, “No exchange shall be made, no deal struck, unless I get to feast on your soul.”

At Loki’s smile, the demon draws back. “Ah,” Loki begins. “It’s very good, then, that I am prepared to offer it to you.”

The demon considers this. “Explain.”

“If you agree to leave this world alone, I will provide for you the soul of Loki and wholly another realm for you upon which to wreak your wonderful havok.”

“You would exchange your soul for the fate of this world?”

“I have done many things while considering the fate of this world,” Loki says truthfully.

“You would sacrifice yourself?”

“I would,” he admits with a tilt of his head. “Yes.”

“Then the deal is struck,” it says, and the words are binding. Loki smiles just a little bit wider. “And you are a fool. Who shall remember this exchange but you and I? And when you are nothing but a husk of Loki, even you shall not remember!” It laughs, dark and low.

Loki says, “Ah, but the deal is made, and I neglected to inform you that the soul of Loki in question is not _my_ soul, really, but my _other’s_ soul. Does that make sense? I suppose it shouldn’t matter, anyway. Both are Loki, or were, but _I_ claim the Tower.”

A moment of disbelief. Then, the demon, enraged, slams itself bodily against the barriers of the summoning circle, clawing uselessly and spitting curses.

“When I release you,” Loki continues nonchalantly against the demon’s tempest, “you will find yourself within _this_ realm.” He points to his ring, the gem now glowing a faint green. “The company will be whom you expect, I’m sure. Now, is there anything you wish to say? Any messages you wish for me to send?”

“When I am out,” the demon spits, “I will find you, hunt you, and I will pick the meat off your bones, and then I will do it again when I find you a second time in the world below.”

“Charming,” Loki says, and he breaks the circle.

The ring takes hold, breaks the demon down into tiny pieces and sucks it up like a vacuum, and then it is over. The gem burns black for a moment before becoming a deep, bloody red. A spark of heat flares through the metal and Loki yelps, yanks the ring off his finger and throws it to the ground, where it clangs and bounces and then finally lays still. He swipes it up after a moment of hesitation and places it in a small pocket of his messenger bag.

Against the fountain of the park, Billy groans and lifts himself to sit against the raised lip of the fountain bowl. “I wish I had the healing power of Wolverine,” Loki hears him say over and over as he nears. When he’s reached the witch, he hears Billy sigh before sending Loki a shaky smile. “So I guess you got him,” he says.

“I guess I did.”

Loki helps him up, brushes the dirt from Billy’s shoulders and pats him down. “Are you all right, Wiccan?” he asks once he’s deemed clean enough.

“I’ve got the worst case of dry-mouth right now, but other than that I seem to be doing okay.” He peers at Loki closely. “And you? Are _you_ okay?”

Loki can barely get out an answer before Billy interrupts. “No, wait. Let me say this, because you need to hear it.”

Loki waits expectantly while Billy fumbles for words, looking very put-upon. “So, I looked for you because we’re a team,” he begins. “You shouldn’t have to be alone in anything if you don’t want to be, because we’re a team. Do you get that? This isn’t Asgardia. We work together, and we trust you, even if sometimes you’re like that annoying little brother who’s always trying to pull a fast one, but that’s okay, because we _like_ you. Get that? So, stop running off on your own, okay? Like, this thing that you just did, summoning Legion and all - I mean, it’s great that he’s been taken care of but we should have done it _together_ , you know?”

“You trust me?” Loki asks him, not quite hearing any words that Billy said after those. “Then why am I not allowed to practice blood magic? Then why did you interfere when you saw me with Daimon?” He is not angry, not really, but struggling to fit the construct of trust into those two situations. “I do not understand.”

“Those were - we trust you, but we also _care_ about you, see? Blood magic is dangerous; I’m not allowed to practice it, either! It literally sucks the life out of you. And Daimon...well, he’s very old, Loki, and I don’t believe that he’s got your best interests at heart.” Billy hangs his head, as though sensing his poor choice of words and their consequences, and Loki delivers.

“Who are you to decide what his interests are? Who are you to decide that I care what his interests for _me_ are?” He’s had enough of the Park. Arms thrown up in exasperation, Loki passes through his portal and closes it after Wiccan follows. The light of his room seems harsh after the darkness around the fountain.

Loki breathes angrily through his nostrils, standing stiffly in the center of his room and skin prickling, and Billy frowns with his whole body, shoulders sagging and sad. He regards Loki carefully, with dark, sorry eyes, and exhales, slow and long. Loki bristles but the tension begins to leave him with the continued silence.

“Oh, Loki,” Billy says, quiet, serious. “We’re your _family_.”

And, _ah_ , that stings wonderfully, leaves Loki breathless and stunned and hopeful, all the anger flushed out of him with that one word, but he is frozen, and scared.

“We’ve _claimed_ you,” Billy says in that same voice, “and you’re ours,” and his arms encircle Loki and bring him close to Billy’s chest, and then Billy tucks Loki’s head under his chin and holds him there, and slowly, very slowly, Loki returns the gesture.

Billy holds him and Loki thinks of a cave, and milkshakes, and Volstagg’s gut-shaking laugh and Sif’s frank, purposeful view of the world. He thinks of his brother, and Tony Stark, and Clint Barton. There’s people who believe him, and then there’s people who believe _in_ him. “I think that’s all I ever wanted,” Loki confesses, feeling his breath returned to him, and with it a weight lifted from his chest.

“What was that?” Billy mutters.

“Nothing. Thank you.”

Billy sighs, and holds Loki tighter. “You’re very, very welcome.”


	5. Chapter 5

Impressive as it may be that Loki trapped a demon into a space no larger than a pea (as it looks on the outside, anyway), success always has its critics, and Tony especially fusses over him and tells him he should have known to have backup, in any case.

They are at the debrief, Loki and Billy and Fury, and anyone else who wanted to join.

Thor says, “My brother has defeated a mighty foe! And Earth remains safer because of it.” He flashes Loki a huge smile from across the table and Loki flashes his own, beaming.

“I want to know what you’ve done with the demon,” Fury says, flat and unamused. “In your report you mentioned something about stowing the ring away for safekeeping. Now, where exactly have you stowed it away?”

Still in the small pocket of his messenger bag, Loki thinks, but he says, “Locked in a pocket-dimension without a key, good sir. If someone wanted to open up the dimension again, they would have to perform a very long set of calculations and do exactly as I did to open it the first time, and so it is highly unlikely that it will be opened again, and even if it were to be opened, it may not be the same dimension. It’s all very tricky, you see.”

“Where’s Strange?” Fury asks, turning his good eye to Tony, who’s sitting next to Thor. “I can’t deal with this voodoo-woodoo bullshit.”

Tony nods and announces, “That’s sound,” to Loki’s explanation, but offers Loki a tiny quirk of his lips to indicate some form of a silent alliance. The quirk means, _I know it’s bullshit but I’m intrigued so I won’t interfere._

Fury inclines his head once sharply, and moves on. “Now, Wiccan. Your part in this was, as reported, that you happened upon Loki’s portal and followed him through it, only to see him summoning Legion. Then everything went black before you were waking up again with a colossal headache.”

“Pretty much,” Billy says, yawning.

“Do you remember anything from when you were possessed?”

Billy eyes Loki before answering. “I remember a lot of anger, and most of it was directed toward Loki. But that’s all.”

“And Loki, describe what you saw.”

Loki describes it. Billy was Billy, only not. His movements were more fluid, but eerily so; he manipulated fire quite well; his eyes were wholly black. Loki tried his best not to hurt him, especially since he didn’t have his throwing knives.

“Wait,” Billy interrupts. “Does this mean if you _had_ had your throwing knives, you would have used them on me?”

“Not fatally, I am sure,” Loki shrugs. “Besides, you would have healed.” He offers him a sharp-toothed grin.

Billy slaps a hand across his face and mutters something under his breath.

“That’s it,” Tony says, slamming both hands onto the table. Thor looks at the engineer quizzically, as though offended by the noise. “I am banning you, Loki, from magic. For a month. No magic for a month! No spells, no crystals, no chalk, no books! You’re grounded.”

“What?” Loki gapes. “What for? And you can’t ground me!”

“For making us worry, for leaving without permission. I don’t know - you need to think about your actions and how they affect other people. And for your information, I can totally ground you, because you _claim_ the Tower, right? Well, guess who owns the Tower?”

“You do,” Loki grumbles. He looks between his brother and Fury, but Fury only rolls his eye and says, “I don’t like to get in the way of family matters. This is between you and Stark and Thor.”

“Can I be excused, then?” Billy asks, looking hopeful. Fury gives everything a long once-over and announces, “We’re both outta here. Let’s go.” They leave, and then it is just Loki sitting across from his brother and his friend.

Thor crosses his arms and sits back, considering. Loki juts out his lower lip and pleads with his eyes. After a long, wordless exchange, Thor sighs. “I agree with the Iron Man, Loki,” he says, shaking his head, and then Loki really pouts. “Though I am pleased that you defeated the evil at hand, your actions indeed caused a great amount of worry. When Jarvis indicated that you were not in the Tower last night, I nearly called down enough lightning to set a forest ablaze.”

“Maybe _you_ should take anger management classes, then,” Loki retorts.

Tony chuckles, but Thor gives him a narrow-eyed look. “Brother,” he admonishes, and Loki looks down at his lap. “Perhaps this will give you time to pursue other interests, of which I know you have many,” he continues in an effort to appease.

“You haven’t sparred with Cap in a while,” Tony offers, “and Barton’s set up this obstacle course in the gym. If you ask me, it looks more like a circus, but nobody asked me.”

“No magic for a month,” Loki repeats, wounded, and allows his head to drop back dramatically. “Oh, woe.”

“No need to put on a show,” Tony chides. “Just a month and we’ll go from there. You’ll see - it’ll pass by really quickly. You can spend more time down in the workshop. It’s been a while since we’ve worked on something together.”

“Maybe I’ll just lock myself in my room and paint my nails black and listen to really awful music and write horrible poetry like all the other teenagers do, and when I come out again a month later I’ll be stupidly pale and allergic to sunlight.”

“Is that what your adolescents do?” Thor asks, horrified.

“You’re not going to do that,” Tony says.

“I might,” Loki huffs.

//

Tony takes away the book he gifted (“I’ll give it back,” he promises), even though it’s futile since Loki has the whole thing memorized. Loki does paint his nails black, but grows so bored after one day of composing haikus and listening to humans wailing to guitars that he nearly throws his Starkpad against a wall. Nearly, because his Starkpad is a precious, precious thing.

Some days are good days, when Loki wakes up and goes to breakfast and fixes or invents things in Tony’s workshop and takes a walk with Thor and doesn’t think about Broxton at all. Some days are bad days, when Loki wakes up and skips breakfast and thinks about Leah and Thori and Ikol and Daimon and doesn’t notice when Billy comes in with some sliced apples to share and pretends to be asleep when Clint or Natasha come by to ask him to the gym. Sometimes Thor will come by on those days, too, and they’ll watch some movie on Loki’s Starkpad in bed and Thor will fall asleep but Loki can’t.

Once, Tony calls Dr. Mason to ask if he can step in, but the doctor just keeps saying something about two steps forward and three steps back and they are making progress in their sessions, so if there’s no emergency, he would rather Loki use the support systems he already has in place. Tony curses at his phone for a long time after that.

The days after bad ones he is usually restless, eager to move after tossing around in bed for the whole night without sleep, so he’ll take his ring out and ponder its depths and then spar with Natasha or Captain Rogers for hours and hours until he’s so exhausted he drops straight back to sleep and there’s no room to think, or remember.

Yesterday was a bad day, so today he is peaky, especially so after the box of poptarts that Thor insisted they share that morning. So, he changes into a t-shirt and athletic shorts and wanders to the gym, stepping just inside and silent when he sees its other occupant.

Clint is there in his sweats, perched on a steel beam running straight across the expanse of the training room at the farthest wall, fitting gloves onto his hands. Without warning he stands and leaps, arms outstretched, and catches himself on a set of rings suspended from the ceiling. He watches as Clint flips himself over and under on the rings, building up momentum before his release into a somersault in the air and a perfect landing.

“Thank you, thank you!” Clint whispers to an imagined audience, bowing precisely at the waist and saluting with his arms. Loki claps enthusiastically, and Clint immediately turns to the noise.

“Well, this is embarrassing,” Clint says, not remotely embarrassed.

Loki pushes off from the wall and begins to walk towards the mats laid over the floor near the center. “Only if you think it is.”

As though pulled by a magnet, Clint begins to walk to the mats, too, picking up the small hand targets on the floor when he reaches the edge and fitting them over his palms. Wordlessly, he shifts his stance to mirror Loki’s and raises the targets to shoulder level. “Speed drills?” Clint asks.

It’s never really a question, but almost always a suggestion just shy of a command. Loki nods, and Clint says, “Keep it at like 25%, okay?” and they begin. Two jabs and a hook, duck, sweep, again. Two jabs and a hook, duck, sweep, again. It’s endless and repetitive and rhythmic, and Loki doesn’t really sweat, ever, but he does get a little flushed in the face. Two jabs and a hook, duck, sweep, again. Clint says, “Faster,” so they go faster.

They’ve done this so many times, faced each other for so long, that the moment Clint begins to pull back his left hand Loki catalogs it and re-adjusts, and then they are on their next drill. Duck, uppercut, one-two, again.

By the end of it Clint is breathing hard and dripping sweat off his nose, and Loki’s own shoulders are heaving. His blood is buzzed and alive and he smiles when Clint collapses flat onto his back and demands water. Loki finds his duffel and drags it over to where they are, and then digs through it for Clint’s bottle, stealing a couple of sips before tossing it onto Clint’s stomach.

“Oomph! Thanks.”

He sits cross-legged next to Clint’s languishing form and traces runes into the mat’s surface, listening as their breathing returns to normal. “Clint, are we friends?” he asks bluntly.

Clint finishes pulling from the bottle and gets water all over his neck for the effort. “Blegh - of course we’re friends! I can’t believe you have to ask.” Loki rummages the duffel for a towel and finds one. He drapes it over Clint’s face. “Thank you,” Clint says, voice muffled. “You’re like my B.F.F. Only don’t tell Nat I said that.”

“B.F.F., huh?” Loki regards the man over twice his age and cannot imagine anyone else who could come close to replacing him in his life. He shrugs. “I had to ask. Do you think you would ever betray me?”

“What’s brought this up, Loki?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Loki says quickly, shaking his head while Clint pushes himself up onto his elbows. “It’s nothing; you don’t have to answer that.”

But Clint says, “No,” with his lips pursed, and falls back onto the mat. “I might question some of the things you do, Loki, but when it comes down to it, I know you’ve got my back.”

He lets the words linger in the air, taking form, before he poses his next question. “So, you don’t think I’d ever betray _you_?”

Clint does not hesitate. “No, Loki, I don’t think you’d ever betray me.”

“How can you be so sure?” Loki presses, and this time Clint is not so quick to answer.

His chest rises and falls, and Loki grows mesmerized by the steady motion of it. Above them, ventilation kicks in, and the whole room hums. “It hurts, doesn’t it?” Clint begins, voice much softer than before. “Betrayal. Putting your faith into someone and them not returning the favor.”

He speaks like these words have been spoken before, like he is reading from an old book of which he already knows the story. “I remember what you told me about Thori, and about Thor. Trust me, I know how it feels. Afterwards it’s hard - almost impossible - to let yourself depend on other people again. You think it’s safer to do everything on your own, to keep to yourself. You do what you can to be the boss in your relationships, so everything is your call.”

A warm knot begins to form in Loki’s chest, and it inflates like a balloon, pushing all the air out of his lungs. “You could give Dr. Mason a few tips, Clint.”

“I just understand, is all.” He shrugs from his position on the floor, his sweats rustling against the mat.

“How? Why do you understand?”

The ensuing silence draws out for so long that Loki is sure Clint will not answer, and he’s about to take back his question when Clint says haltingly, cautiously, “I had an older brother, too.” His eyes slide over to Loki’s, assessing. Loki tries not to give anything away, but his heart is beating hard and it is difficult to swallow. “We were close; we were orphans so we had to stick together. I thought we’d always be together. Then one day, we were at a crossroads, and he chose a road that I could not - _would not_ \- follow.”

The story is too familiar. Tears prickle his eyes but do not fall. “I had no idea.”

“I don’t tell many people.”

At that, Loki smiles, small but sure. “But now you’ve told me.”

“You’re one of the lucky ones,” Clint says, smirking.

//

He has more good days.

Billy and Teddy take him to a restaurant in Union Square that specializes in chocolate, and he and Thor attempt to recreate a dish that Loki had particularly liked.

He counts four good days in a row, one of which was a day with Dr. Mason, and then he calls Daimon.

He has a feeling Daimon doesn’t really _do_ texts, so he calls him, sitting cross-legged on his bed with the door locked and the sun about to set outside of his window, the sky pink-orange-purple and just starting to show stars.

Daimon does not answer, not that he was expecting him to. He leaves a message: “Hi, it’s, ah, Loki. It’s been a while, yes? I’d like to see you, so if you could meet me at Columbus Circle near the large globe this Saturday at sundown, I would greatly appreciate it. So, ah, see you then? This is Loki, by the way. Oh, wait, I’ve already said that.”

After the message, he wishes he texted, anyway.

There’s no answer, and soon enough Saturday is upon Loki. He checks his phone constantly, a wall of technology between him and the world, but Daimon does not answer. Still, he goes to the globe, and waits.

Columbus Circle is always a hotbed of activity no matter the time of day. People scurry to and fro from the bank, to the market, to the shops, back to the banks. Loki counts eighty-three visitors to the Starbuck’s at the corner in the fifteen minutes that he’s been standing before the globe. Near the entrance of Central Park are a group of protesters holding up black picket signs and shouting.

Sundown was a vague time request, Loki chides himself, growing antsy even from all the people-watching he’s able to conduct. Did Loki mean when the sun was completely absent from the sky, or when the stars first start to come out, or when the sun dips below the buildings at the West? If Loki does not know, then surely Daimon does not know. By now, the sun has long past dipped below the buildings. The stars shine bright and the sky is clear, the night crisp and autumnal. It’s definitely past sundown, Loki thinks, the face of many of the shops glowing fluorescent and sharp. He turns to go back to the subway station (just five more days without magic, he remembers), and runs nose-first into a smooth, silky suit with hard muscles.

“Excuse me!” Loki chirps, covering his nose with his hands. He looks up and squeaks. “Oh, you came!”

Daimon, dressed in a sleek charcoal suit with a deep ruby tie and hair slicked, stands with his hands in his pockets, and Loki wets his lips subconsciously.

“So it would seem,” Daimon says lowly. He takes a step back and tightens his tie, looking uncomfortable.

“I mean, I’m glad that you did, seeing as how I told you to, and everything,” Loki tells him with a winning smile. “You look...good.”

Daimon raises an eyebrow. “I look as I always do.”

Which is a blatant lie. The lines of the suit really work wonders to Daimon’s figure. Loki feels shabby in his dark jeans and cardigan. “Hm, well, perhaps absence really does make the heart grow fonder,” he allows, smirking.

Daimon returns the smirk. “Are you certain it is your heart that is growing?”

Loki gasps. “Daimon!” He feigns scandalized, and Daimon shrinks just a little.

“That was inappropriate,” he murmurs. Then, a little louder: “How have you been?”

“I’ve been...mostly well,” Loki tells him truthfully, and they begin to walk where the protesters are dissipating. They pass the statues marking the mouth of the entrance, and continue from there down a winding and hilly path. “Legion has been defeated, as you must know. I have not been possessed by any demons of late, so that’s a bonus.”

Daimon chuckles, and they turn down a path from the main road, taking careful steps as they near a pond. Even in the darkness the water looks green and poisonous. “Why have you called me here?” he asks when they’ve wandered far enough that their path is empty, and they can speak in peace.

Loki ignores the question, turning bright green eyes to the exorcist. “Daimon, did you miss me?”

“I...don’t know what you mean.”

The god nods once to himself, mouth a grim line. “I didn’t really miss you,” he says. “I mean, I thought about you, but I didn’t really miss you.”

Daimon reaches out and puts a hand on Loki’s shoulder, and he doesn’t push him away. “The same is true for me, then.”

“Billy and Tommy think that what I’m doing with you is bad, and they want for me to stop,” Loki says in a rush, pulling himself closer to Daimon.

Daimon is all heat and smoke and leather, and Loki inhales and wants more. “Do you think it’s bad?” Daimon asks him.

“I don’t know,” Loki admits. “Sometimes when I’m with you like that, it feels like I’m burning alive. But it also feels good, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be a bad thing.”

“So, can’t it be a _good_ thing?”

Daimon grunts, and Loki presses, and then are chest to chest, and Daimon dips his nose into the juncture of Loki’s neck and shoulder and breathes hotly over his skin, “Loki, if you truly wanted a _good_ thing, you would not seek it with me.”

“But I _like_ you,” Loki tells him, shivering. “And the kissing is nice.”

“There will be more than kissing, if you pursue this,” and then Daimon nips.

“Oh!” Loki sighs. “I am well aware.”

“So what shall become of us?” and as they speak Daimon scrapes his teeth against Loki’s jaw, mouths his throat like a wolf.

“I don’t know yet. All I know is that I don’t want this to stop,” Loki says, breathless.

“When have you ever listened to someone when they’ve told you to stop?”

“Almost never, I believe, and I don’t intend to start now. Now, stop talking so much, will you?”

//

Five more days and the ban on his magic is lifted, and Tony gives him back the book.

He no longer really requires the pages anymore, save for one more trick that he has decided he must pull. He gets the idea from his other from so long ago, and smirks at the irony of it.

Loki opens the books to its last page, blank like the ones before it, and draws a little question mark with his pen in the center of it. He draws choice runes around the punctuation in a spiraling pattern and watches with satisfaction when the spiral flashes once before the runes disappear altogether, and the punctuation mark itself grows darker.

Then, he picks up the ring, and places it over the mark on the page.

All he has to do is close the book, and the ring will be gone from this dimension forever.

" _I know you, now,_ " Ikol had said to him before the end, " _and I am pleased by what I see. Loki is Loki and forever will be_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay. never again. i'm ready for trickster!kidloki now D: 
> 
> thanks for sticking this one out, if you've reached the end! -yaya


End file.
